"Sunshine is important for our health and recreation, and for the environment. It is also important for our agriculture-based economy, for example, for plant growth.

This layer shows annual sunshine hours across New Zealand for 1973 as part of the data series for years 1972 to 2013.
Data is for a calendar year (January-December).

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) mapped mean annual sunshine hours from the virtual climate station network data (NIWA) generated from data in its National Climate Database, for the period 1981–2013. It generated the Units: percentage of normal by comparing the annual average to the long-term mean for 1981–2010. Maps were produced using the Virtual Climate Station network data. Data for each year are measured over the calendar year (January–December).

The accuracy of the data source is of high quality.

This dataset relates to the ""Sunshine hours in New Zealand"" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.